Tinder-dry Britain at risk of wildfires

It may be a wet summer in the UK at the moment, but remember the devastating fires that have plagued Australia, Greece, California and Turkey over the last few years? Well these are likely to become common in the UK within years according to the Fire Brigades Union, which claims there has been a huge rise in the number of outdoor blazes over the past decade. The Union is blaming climate change for a rise in temperature that is turning large parts of rural Britain tinder-dry, with the result that there has been a big increase in the number of outdoor fires since 1997. Figures collected by the Union in the first analysis of its kind reveal that there was a 51 per cent increase in the number of heath and grass fires between 2002 and 2006, compared with the previous five-year period. Between 1997 and 2002 there were 208,908 fires in England, compared with 315,868 for the five years afterwards. Exceptionally arid conditions in 2003 saw the number of fires jump to 110,460 compared with fewer than 50,000 the year before. Firefighters in Wales and Scotland have expressed concerns about similar rises in the number of fires in their regions. Last year the South Wales fire service received 5,500 calls relating to outdoor fires in just 10 days. In some parts of the UK, such as Lancashire and Cumbria, the number of outdoor fires has more than doubled in the past decade.The union is worried the focus on flooding is distracting public attention from the threat of outdoor fires. ‘It took last year’s floodings to hammer home to policy-makers what we will face as a result of global warming,’ Wrack said. ‘But there is a danger the rising number of large grassland and heathland fires will go unnoticed.’ Some environmental sceptics deny that global warming is having an impact on the UK. But Wrack said the union’s evidence suggested otherwise. ‘We can almost track the impact of global warming by looking at the rising numbers of grassland and heathland fires,’ he said. ‘These are placing enormous strain on already over-stretched fire services and the clear trend is upwards.’

You can read this article by Jamie Doward in full in the Observer (10th August 2008) or online at http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/aug/10/endangeredhabitats.climatechange